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Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Descent Part II

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Thanks to his horrible brother, Lore, Data's now called Twitchy the Rage Junkie. His usurped emotion chip has given Lore a strong desire to make a family. Pity it's the Manson Family times the Addams Family multiplied by La Familia Robocop.

You remember Little Borg Orphan Hugh? His individuality did spread... to a single Borg ship. Which the Collective cut off to save itself. Unable to steer or even eat without guidance, that's when these rudderless chumps met their Pasty-Faced Prophet.

Lore crows: "The reign of biological life forms is coming to an end. You will be obsolete." Adding 'One of us, one of us, Gooble Gobble, one of us.'

Data holds his friends in the way you shouldn't hold them... prisoner. "I am not your puppet anymore!"

He takes Geordi to be the next contestant on 'How Many Brain Implants Equals Perfection?'

It's fallen to Captain Beverly Crusher to save the ship Picard abandoned. Crusher repeatedly swoops back to Lore's World to beam up stragglers. She also implements the sun shield to destroy the Borg ship with a solar flare.

Do you feel sorry for the little lamp? That is because you are crazy. It has no feelings. Oh, wait... yeah, he did. But lest we forget
Lore's crimes: accessory to planetary massacre, two counts of attempted massacre, aggravated assault, patricide, Pakledcide, experimentation on sentient beings, and conspiracy to destroy organic life. He was one of the worst people in the universe.

Of course, unless something has changed, capital punishment is STILL not condoned by Federation Law. Lore was a Federation citizen and sentient under the law (albeit by his own actions the ONLY surviving citizen of his world.) I guess the loophole is that Lore could TECHNICALLY be reassembled and reactivated. So Data is not murdering but enforcing dormancy or something. That said: please stop reactivating Lore.

"Descent Part II" welcomes you back to the final (and maybe finest) season of Star Trek The Next Generation.

It's telling that, (if you think about it) Data was attempting to turn his best friend into an android. But, if you want to perform jiggery pokery on your buddy's brain, you do what Geordi does: get permission first.

It's Geordi who makes the best showing of all today. Even with his crazy friend drilling holes in his skull, Geordi's stoicism, bravery, sense of proportion, and ability to forgive is vast. To expiate his guilt, Data would have destroyed the emotion chip for what it made him do. And despite this, Geordi gets him to hang onto it for later.